First time for everything…

Lot’s of first experiences today, even from my first step outside today! The Florida weather has unfortunately traveled to Sweden! It was 80+ and super sunny, first day for short sleeves and open toes. I hope it’s cooler tomorrow; it’s been such a nice treat to have the cool weather breeze. Today was the first day that we really broke down the Lovewell model, which is a part of the program we are involved with here. Our professor for this course at Nova is also the founder for the Lovewell Institute, which is the program that is here at the Oskarshamn Folkhögskola where we are staying (Oskarshamn is the town we are in and Folkhögskola is best translated as a community college/2 year program before the bigger university).  We had a crash course in some of the Lovewell methodology and best practices that they use with their theater students. This morning’s class was a real ah-ha! moment for a lot of us today. We had discussion around how these methods for theater/ arts studies really can be applied to integrate other subjects in a student’s curriculum and using the arts as the portal for teaching all subjects. We focused mainly on The Affirmations (http://blog.lovewell.org/?page_id=1479) which they use in place of “rules and restrictions” to help guide and teach the students through their experience here in order to remain creative. We also went over some of the key points that we will learn and experience while we are here, one being the cultural integration experience, second the education/arts aspect and lastly the group dynamics of everyone here.

After lunchtime, Naomi, DJ, our Professor and myself walked into town and did a little shopping/exploring. We walk into the church here, Svenska Kyrkan, and learned a very interesting perspective for the first time from the ladies at the church, we were curious to find out why they had a big boat handing in the entry way and they explained, much better than I, but basically that they see the church as a safe place and that if there was ever something horrific to happen, specifically a flood then they would all be able to go into the church as the ceiling is the bottom of the boat! I thought it was a really new way of looking at it. (See pictures).

We all (the Nova students) did a presentation/group activity/etc. with the Swedish theater students who are here. In order to get to know them better and introduce us to them and we really wanted to capture their attention while doing so. I connected the book by Dr. Seuss Oh the place you’ll go to one of the affirmations we learned today “I am now at this moment, all that I need to be” as I felt it really applied for those who are in the performing arts as you have to truly accept yourself and where you are in order to be open and able create, and really in all aspects of life! After reading the book to the students we did an activity that I planned where they had two stacks of cards and had to choose one from each which exampled metaphorically the steps you take in a journey (crawl, walk, run, walk backwards, baby steps, etc.) and the other stack of cards were the destinations, in this example just points in the classroom (window, chair, piano, curtain, etc.) It was fun and got the kids moving.

My first Swedish words: J

      Skål (cheers)
Rea Rea! (Sale Sale)
Fika (Coffee break tradition they have daily with friends and sweets)
Halvtorrt (I was schooled in the liquor store by a cute Swedish boy that it helps identify the level of sweetness of wine, I’m a Riesling lover, this means like a medium sweetness) 

Best ice-cream (pistachio) i've ever had, same with the waffle cone!!!!!